“I have decided to suspend parliament’s activities for one month in line with Article 59 of the Lebanese constitution,” Aoun said in a televised address to the nation.

“Upon my election as president, I performed the oath of office, vowing loyalty to the constitution of the Lebanese nation and its laws and to preserve Lebanon’s independence, unity and territorial integrity,” Aoun said.

“The Document of National Accord, which has become an inseparable part of the Lebanese constitution, stipulates that the parliamentary elections should take place according to a new electoral law,” he added.

For his part, House Speaker, Nabih Berri, announced on Wednesday the adjournment of the legislative session till May 15, 2017.

“After President Aoun used Article 59 of the Constitution, this plan aims at availing more time to reach a new vote law, and henceforth the parliament session is adjourned till May 15, hoping to reach a unified format that allows us to have a technical extension dissociating us from undesired vacuum,” Speaker Berri said.

Berri deemed the step, used by President Aoun for the first time in the history of Lebanon, as a mean to give further time to reach an agreement over a new election law under the ceiling of proportionality as has always been proclaimed by the President.